En las fauces del lobo
by public static void
Summary: Remus has spent his life trying to become more human, and then comes the wolf to take him home. Set before PoA.


Remus knows the forest better than any other child his age and he can stay there for hours, enjoying the solitude he doesn't get at home with the joyful laughter of his father and the constant happy humming of his mother. Remus loves them, but sometimes he wants to read and hear the silence around them. The forest, with its scent of pine and rain, is the perfect place to hide away when he wants quiet.

It is in that forest where he meets the person who changes his life forever, though he's not sure he can call Fenrir Greyback a person (he's a beast) and he's even less sure that his existence is a proper life after the attack.

Suddenly, the smell of pine enters his nostrils with more intensity than ever before, and it feels as if Remus shoved pine needles into his nose and carved his shoulder with a blunt knife. There is blood, too, but he is too tired to know more.

The last thing he remembers is a shrill howl and amber eyes staring into his soul.

* * *

 _The first night his friends transform Remus is beside himself with happiness because he never thought his friends might do something like that to help him._

 _Soon they're out in the castle grounds and running towards the forest. For the first time in months, Remus can actually feel the moon when its pull calls for his blood to boil inside him and for his bones to turn and twist to make the dark creature he is._

* * *

The war is raging and Remus can smell the smoke everywhere he turns. He is far from the cities, and yet the wind carries traces of the burning. He is not in werewolf form, but the full moon will come tomorrow and he already feels the pain on his joints and the sharpness of his senses begin to overwhelm him enough to make him seek refuge in the woods.

The shifting of the wind suddenly carries another scent to him, and he turns around to seek the source.

Amber eyes, so similar to his own, are staring at him through the foliage of tall bushes, and he doesn't know whether to laugh at the thought of Fenrir Greyback hiding in the bushes or to run and avoid an encounter with him. His logic tells him to run and never look back, not even to confront the creature who turned him into a monster when he could barely understand life as a wizard.

"You are a fool, Remus Lupin," the monster tells him, stepping into the light of the not-completely-fool moon. He's already half-transformed and Remus wonders how could a man become a being like Greyback?

"I am what you made of me," he responds, risking his life with his petulant tone. What life does he have, anyway? He's shunned and loathed already, and not many people know of his affliction.

The monster laughs, and its earthy reminds Remus of the deep notes of a piano slicing the silence with their blunt and melodic sound.

"You are what you made of yourself, wizard," the last word burns with hatred, and perhaps Remus has been wrong his entire life and werewolves are not pack creatures. "I gave you power and strength. I gave you everything to prove to your father that we are not the monsters he believed."

"You bit a child when you did that!" Remus shouts and his fists are at his sides, ready to strike an opponent who is faster and stronger than he is.

The breeze still smells of smoke when Greyback laughs and runs away on four legs, like an animal. Remus is left alone again, and the moon shines over his head making him beg for a new moon already.

* * *

 _James and Lily are dead. Peter is gone. Sirius is a traitor who cheated them all. Remus has no reason to live except for Harry, but now the prejudice has reached Dumbledore and he's not allowed to seek Harry._

 _Should he end it all?_

* * *

There is nothing personal in his room and, for that matter, there is only one room in his small house. It's bedroom and kitchen and dining room all in the same few square meters, and the smell of the cocoa he just made permeates the place.

The old couch is here from when he first moved in, and through all those years Remus is not able to get a big, black stain out of it. Now it's almost a heart-warming way to greet the last day he'll spend alone. Before the summer is over, he will move to Hogwarts again and will become a teacher. At last, he will be back to the place that saw his happiest days.

Remus is too tired to get up from the couch when he hears the rustling of grass from outside the door. Is too careless to be an animal, and it carries the power of a full moon with it. He knows is Greyback outside, and wonders with a bit of morbid curiosity if fate will kill him before he achieves his dream of teaching.

Greyback opens the door. Remus sips the cocoa from his cup and raises an eyebrow. The man is not partially transformed this time and on his posture, he can see a sliver of civilization. At least he's wearing pants this time.

"Are you here to kill me?" Remus asks the monster. "Finally going to finish what you started years ago when you took everything from me and made me a monster like yourself?"

The roaring laughter of Greyback doesn't match the situation or his words, and Remus wonders if maybe he isn't drinking cocoa but whiskey. There is no way in hell Greyback is inside his home and not killing him or maiming him.

"I bear a gift of goodwill," Greyback says. Remus narrows his eyes and sets the cup on the rickety side table. "When I transformed you I wanted a pliable child who would become my successor. You proved me I made the right choice."

"I would never be like you. I am nothing like you. You run like a beast at the call of the moon and kill innocents for fun. You turn children into the monsters they are afraid of with no shame. How mad are you, that you believe I would be bought by a gift?"

Greyback's grin is terrifying, but the shrieks of the thing he produces from a sack on his back are horrid. A rat without a finger, a dead man, a treasonous friend.

Once Pettigrew is dead, his lips move on their own to thank the man who finished his life in a way.

"Be a man and join me," Greyback growls. "Be a beast and fight for our cause."

There is no common cause that Remus knows, but he agrees and goes with Greyback. For the right to kill Peter, he owes the monster that at least.

"How did you find him?" Remus asks hours later when they arrive at a forest of Gloucestershire. People with clothing of poor-quality and wild hair roam among the trees and go into makeshift houses of fallen branches and skins. A werewolf colony, Remus realizes, and one more civilized that the ones that plague his nightmares. "Where did you get Peter?"

"Your other friend did, and I happened to find them both," when Greyback says those words, Remus's heart beats faster.

"Sirius?"

Greyback nods and points him to a skinny old man who is not old at all.

"The dementors tried to take away my hotness," he jokes when Greyback growls at Remus' yelp. "Get a hang of yourself, Remus, or your new sugar daddy will throw us out to the streets."

Greyback growls again, and Remus is reminded of why he's in the forest and begins to believe he really drank whiskey instead of cocoa.

"I must be dreaming," Remus says and sits down on the ground. A child approaches him and gives him a small bone before running away to the camp. Remus laughs.

"He's barking mad," Sirius says to no one in particular, and Remus notices Greyback's gone to gods know where. "He agreed to let me live if I could bring you to him."

Remus nods but doesn't know what else to say. Should he apologize for doubting Sirius? Should he congratulate his friend on being the first wizard to ever escape Azkaban?

"So you sold me," he decides to say and it's the right thing because soon Sirius is laughing alongside him and he has his arm on his friend's shoulder. It feels like home, and everything becomes simple again.

"Life will be interesting now," Remus says. "I suppose I won't be going back to Hogwarts."

Sirius shrugs. It is then that Remus notices how thin Sirius' shoulders are and how gaunt he looks. His skin is almost yellow and he has the looks of a man who has seen his worst nightmares.

"Maybe Greyback will let you," Sirius says with something strange in his voice. "He is fond of you."

Remus narrows his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"You should see it for yourself, Remus," Sirius answers with another shrug and a mad cackle. "But let me tell you one thing: he would do many things to get you to lead his people after him."

Sirius walks away after that and Remus is left on the ground, thinking about his life. Since he was bitten he has spent his life trying to become more human, and now he is willing to become a monster because a beast granted him revenge.

"I should have drunk the whiskey."


End file.
